scerir <scerir@libero.it> Wrote:
>I pointed out a decade ago that the universal background radiation
> discovered by Penzias and Wilson, far from being the relict of Gamow's
> imaginary big-bang fireball, is in fact the real solution to Olbers' Paradox.
With modern telescopes we can see back 15 billion light years or so and the
stuff we see is receding from us at almost 90% of the speed of light . That means
anything more distant than about 20 billion light years could play no part in the cosmic
background radiation, it would be red shifted to oblivion so we can forget about it.
There are just not enough galaxies within 20 billion light years to produce this background
radiation. Also, the galaxies of 15 billion years ago do not look like the galaxies of today,
and if there was anything there we should be able to see quasars and stuff 17 or 18 billion
light years away but we see nothing; apparently beyond a certain point stars have not had
time enough to form. All this would seem to work against the idea that the universe is
infinite, eternal, and unchanging.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:26 MDT